Text Read by Julius Abure
As we are all aware, Nigeria held its general elections yesterday, an exercise that is ongoing as I speak. Yesterday, February 25, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission carried out elections nationwide for Presidential and National Assembly position. The exercise has left millions of Nigerians disappointed and disillusioned because of the unprofessional conduct of state and non-state actors who participated in the process. This press conference is to address the serious matters arising from the 2023 election, an extremely important election for Nigeria’s peace and development. THE FAILURE OF INEC TO ABIDE BY THE PUBLISHED AND AGREED PROCESS
@inecnigeria by its conduct, has caused millions of Nigerians, particularly the teeming youth, who took part in this election with high hopes of a free and fair transparent process to hold strong feelings of disappointment and disillusionment. The Electoral Act was amended in 2022 for the electronic transmission of results after they are declared at the polling units. Nigerians participated in this process with the belief that the use of technology and adherence to the agreed electronic transmission of results to INEC servers at polling units would ensure free, fair, and transparent election.
Traditionally, Nigerians know that previous elections witnessed manipulations of results by desperate politicians at collation centres and polling units. But, yesterday, Saturday, February 25, 2023, the very process which INEC assured Nigerians would be followed was truncated for whatever reasons. No matter what those reasons are, they are totally unacceptable to Nigerians and members of our party. INEC servers shut down, and ONLY PRESIDENTIAL elections could not be uploaded onto the INEC server.
The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) did not work as planned. This failure has undoubtedly given room for manipulating the presidential results being announced by the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu at the Collation Centre in Abuja. We have sufficient documentary evidence that confirms that manipulations of the presidential election results have occurred in Lagos State, Rivers State, Imo State, parts of Edo State, Delta State, and some Northern states. These manipulations were carried out under the watchful eyes and connivance of police officers at the various polling units and INEC offices.
The decision of INEC to go ahead to announce these doctored results based on manufactured voting has defeated the efforts made by Nigerians to see that the Electoral Act was amended to allow for electronic transmission of results. It is disheartening that 24 hours after the elections held across the country that INEC is still yet to upload the authentic results of the Presidential poll on its server.
The excuse that the server is down is not tenable. Because we had meetings with INEC before the election, and they assured all political parties, and indeed Nigerians, that they had a DATA RECOVERY SERVER and in the event of a technical hitch, the emergency server would be used until the main server was brought back online. We find it difficult to accept the flimsy excuse that the INEC servers were down.
INEC OFFICIALS REFUSING TO UPLOAD PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS IN LAGOS AND DELTA STATES We note the impunity which occurred in the entire Lagos State during the conduct of yesterday’s election. There were widespread incidences of violence, ethnic profiling, and threats meted out on Nigerians, particularly those who supported the Labour Party and our Presidential Candidate, His Excellency Mr Peter Obi.
